The Lowdown on ‘The Lo-Down’

Allow me a second to explain: classes are back in full swing, and I’m already feeling the pressure of keeping up with copious academic readings. (There are only so many PDFs of Austrian philosophical critique a girl can take.) Light, mindless reading is my personal equivalent of watching guilty pleasure reality TV. So, desperate for some zoning out “me time,” I searched my bookshelves for something utterly unpretentious and realized that I owned something written by ‘The Hills” star Lo Bosworth. Score. Enter: The Lo-Down: Life and Love in the Hollywood Hills. This relationship advice book manages to simultaneously be exactly what you think it is and more than you’ll give it credit for. Read on for hilarious quotes and my uncensored opinions on this read!

“A lot of relationships are not good ones. They suck! They make you feel like poo! And you don’t deserve that!” rants Lo in her book’s inspirational introduction. Just kidding, it wasn’t inspiring at all. If you can get through Lo’s intro chapter, the rest of the book gets exponentially better. But don’t underestimate your ability to get through her ridiculous opener.

I was initially offended that she’d down-talk to her audience (teenage girls and women in their 20s) because it’s the only way her demographic could understand her pearls of wisdom. Then, I realized that it’s just her. She writes in her speaking voice, and I can’t condemn her for that. (I mean, I could- but I’ve written everything from this blog post to my college senior thesis on 19th century Russian literature in nothing but my own voice.)

Lo claims that not believing in yourself and being down in the dumps about a bad relationship “is not a good look for you, just like blue nail polish, even OPI’s Russian Navy.” What is this madness?! Russian Navy is literally the most universally flattering nail polish on the planet! But okay, I get her point.

Even when Lo’s advice is bogged down by labored metaphors, (she takes a “finding the right puzzle piece” idea way further than you’d care to follow it. Like seriously, we know.) she does offer up surprisingly great advice. The basic fact that she and her famous friends (a la ‘Laguna Beach’) have dated around makes for great stories and some wisdom about what do do and what kind of loser guys to avoid. When she gets through her ditzy moments, she really has something to share.

I could do without her relationship question “quizzes,” but I’m okay with the fact that she set up her book in a tween mag format. A lot of young girls could seriously benefit from her frank advice. That being said, I don’t recommend picking up the book unless you’re a) Just curious about her writing style b) In a relationship crisis at the moment or c) Completely lost or new to dating. (Do you see what I did there?)